Etching Techniques

The prints embrace the full range of techniques of etching on copper,
including hardground, softground, aquatint, sugarlift, drypoint,
open-bite, deep-bite, spit-bite, white-ground heliogravure, and
burnishing.

In hardground
etching, a metal plate is covered with a waxy ground. The artist draws
through the ground with a point, revealing the bare metal. The plate is
immersed in acid, which eats into the metal where it is exposed by the
drawing. These marks hold ink, which is printed onto paper in a heavy
rolling press.

Variations of this technique give the artist a wider range of drawn and painted marks:

Softground
enables the artist to draw on paper laid over the ground; the ground
sticks and lifts with the paper, exposing the plate where the artist
has drawn.

Aquatint creates tone by etching a random pattern of 'dots' through a ground of scattered grains of resin.

Sugarlift allows the artist to paint with a solution that lifts the ground when immersed in water.

Acid can also be brushed directly onto a bare plate (open-bite), or onto an aquatint ground (spit-bite).